It’s always been curios to me that the author or inventor or artist doesn’t own the rights to their work for all time. Why do these things expire?
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First, IP laws got a bit out of hand since they were invented. I won’t dive into that, but give the original reasoning.
For the longest time, people invented stuff for various reasons. But when they wanted to make money from that stuff, they had to keep the invention secret to preserve its value. Because, why should I pay for a way to turn steam into motion if my competitors get that for free the second I use it in public?
At some point, people realised that inventing new stuff would get more and more expensive. The fear was, that it would get so expensive, that nobody could do it anymore without earning money from it (Hint: They were right.). And on the other hand, so many inventions were kept secret and no one else could build upon them, make them better or be inspired to invent something else.
So patents were invented. For the low, low price of having to publish your invention, you can now use it exclusively for a number of years.
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On the copyright side of things, it wasn’t that much different. Sure, authors never kept their books secret, but they were paid by publishers. Yes, why would a publisher pay much money for a story of they could just go to the next bookstore and buy it for the price of a printed book by their rivals?
Turned out, there was a reason. People who bought books did so when they were first published. A reprint, a month later or so, didn’t sell very well unless it was a massively popular book. So publishers concentrated on publishing new works, paying through the nose to get more and more authors to write new books to earn that sweet “we have something new!” money.
On the other side of the channel, in England, lawmakers didn’t notice that, Instead they heard the original complaint and decided to do something about it. Just like patents, you could now register your written works and get a limited time where your publisher had exclusive control over it after paying you a lump sum. It didn’t really increase the earnings of authors, and the number of new books published was quite low when compared to the continent, but publishers were happy. They could print the same book over and over without having to pay someone and sell it for the same price.
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A couple of international treaties later, and we now have those systems worldwide. A bit of lobbying on top, and publishers can earn money for way longer than the authors live.
Random side note: One of those treaties is responsible for Steamboat Willie still being protected in some countries even though it would be out of copyright there by now and is out of it in the US. :facepalm:
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